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Canada’s Dept of National Defence wrote Afghan President’s speech?

Posted by Scott Tribe on September 25, 2007, at 3:42 pm |

If the NDP’s documents that they obtained through the Freedom Of Information Act are correct, it appears the Department of National Defence wrote up Afghan President Karzai’s speech to Parliament last year:

The party’s defence critic, Dawn Black, says the papers indicate Karzai’s address was an “elaborately staged political stunt.” Black held a news conference today to release access-to-information documents that suggest a team of military advisers prepared an initial draft of Karzai’s speech, delivered on Sept. 22, 2006. She quoted a situation report from Task Force Afghanistan as saying: “Team prepared initial draft of President (Karzai’s) address to Parliament 22 Sep.”

It’s one thing for the Canadian military to be asking Canadians to “support the troops”, regardless of your feelings about Afghanistan or the mission. It’s quite another to be taking swipes at political opponents of the mission through a foreign leader – not that it did anything to sway public opinion to increase the popularity of the mission, mind you. Be that as it may, it’s disturbing that the military has decided to become politicized like this – to go as far as to write pointers for the Afghanistan President to try and sway Canadian public opinion, and by extension the Conservative government’s support for it.

3 comments to Canada’s Dept of National Defence wrote Afghan President’s speech?

Good thing you put a "?" at the end of your title. Since its just an allegation at this point.

I recall something about Afghanistan being massively unpopular in Quebec and the Tories nonetheless crushing the Bloc in one byelection and almost stealing another one from them in a second? How do you square that circle?

CANADA IS A DEMOCRACY AND NOT A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP. OUR CANADIAN MILITARY ARE NOT TO BE INVOLVED IN POLITICS, EITHER IN CANADA, OR OUTSIDE, AND IT IS NOT TO INFLUENCE FOREIGN AFFAIRS POLICIES OR BE AN ARM FOR HARPERS MANDATE. I STRONGLY AM IN FAVOR OF AN PARLIMENTARY INQUIRY. IT SEEMS OUR GENERAL HILLIER HAS CROSSED THE LINE AGAIN. PERHAPS HE SHOULD RESIGN HIS POSITION. THIS WILL BE AN ELECTION ISSUES FOR SURE. (JOE BONNEVIE MONCTON NB)